Project SM Monotype PotW #7: Wanka

Kev

Part of the journey is the end
is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnus
Approved by Eien , Acast & Vid
Based off of OU PotW and Gen 6 Mono PotW

Welcome to seventh edition of Monotype Player of the Week!

(credits to Seo. for the banner)

During this project, I will be interviewing some of the most influential players in Monotype today whether it be based on their exceptional contribution to the metagame or their outstanding performance in tours. If anyone has suggestions on who should be interviewed next, feel free to PM me your ideas.
This week I decided to change things up and interview an up and coming player after being suggested alternating between top players and those. This week we have Winner of the first Monotype Summer Seasonal, overall fantastic tour player and big contributor to the metagame.


Wanka

Can you tell us a bit about your life outside of Smogon?
-
My name is Chris and I currently attend Arcadia University, which is a private college just outside of Philadelphia. I'm just starting my freshman year here as a business major and I also am apart of the mens soccer team as well. http://www.arcadiaknights.com/roster.aspx?path=msoc (anyone interested in our team roster, I am #21) Outside of mons I'm pretty into movies and TV shows and also rap music. I spent a lot of my free time this past summer watching Rick and Morty and various other shows and making beats with my friends.​

What are you most known for?
-
I'd say probably being one of the best ORAS players towards the end of the metagame and having a lot of success in the monotype tournament scene between winning MPL III, one of the seasonal tours in ORAS, and ULC 3 times. I also used to be apart of the VR council and QC team.​

What made you play Pokemon competitively? What got you into Monotype and made you want to stay?
- One of my long time neighborhood friends was actually a verlisify fan and would play showdown all the time and would always talk to me about it. I used to just enjoy single player and roms, but I would play with him sometimes and I thought it was pretty cool so I would make unregged alts from time to time and play. Then like the summer of my freshman year in highschool I started to talk in the UU room and I just started playing a shit ton. I was a voice in the UU room and met some cool people including Arifeen. He took me and some other people to a monotype side server to just fuck around on, but It was actually pretty cool and I would play monotype with him sometimes. Then he offered me to join one of his old leagues and that's where I met a lot of my current friends and I just stuck with it. I think the old atmosphere of leagues is what really made me stay. Even though I was new, I was able to learn from established players at the time and they had patience with me so I enjoyed it.​

What is your favorite Pokemon in general and favorite one to use competitively?
-My overall favorite pokemon would probably be heracross. I really liked its design growing up playing single player and it's two typings are my two overall favorite types. MY favorite mon competitively would probably be mew. It used to be keldeo but with the introduction of toxapex it took a big hit. And yeah mew is such an unpredictable and versatile mon, which I really like. Might even bee too good rn o.o​

What is your favorite type?
- My favorite overall type is bug, but my favorite type to use is poison. I've always loved bug types and in ORAS bug was quite effective and one of the more creative types to use, which is why I love it so much. There's a lot you can do with bug in SM, but I don't think it's nearly as effective as it was in ORAS. When I need to buckle down though, my go to is poison. The gallade drop wasn't kind, but I think poison is the best type in the meta to use in the tournament scene hands down. I think it's the best type for rewarding high level play as there really isn't a lot that just outright beats poison teams. I've found that my success when using it comes down to how I play rather than "oh I won because I have this" or, "I lost because my opponent had this." It doesn't make me feel like im playing tic tac toe rather an actual competitive game. I used it 9 times in my recent seasonal run and I went 7-2 using it with. Unfortunately I had to drop out late in the tour, but I was really impressed with the type as a whole.​

How about your favorite playstyle?
- My favorite playstyle has always been heavy offense. It can be difficult to stick with at times because one misplay or the slightest bit of hax can lose you games, but at the same time, playing on a razor sharp edge also means that one prediction or misplay by your opponent can open up the door for a win. It's also the most fun to build, which keeps my interest in mons.

What are your thoughts on the current SM Monotype metagame? Are there things you think deserve a suspect, to be banned or unbanned? How does it fair compared to ORAS?
- One word to describe it would probably be "interesting." People know this already I think, but there are a lot of things that I think deserve a suspect. And that's not to say that's anybody's fault because nobody can control the influx of potentially broken shit we get, but yes I don't like certain things right now. As far as uncompetitive aspects go, I think shadow tag really has no business being in the metagame and I honestly don't need to explain why at this point. I also could be a minority here, but really don't like the introduction of mega altaria. It's not even that it's an overall good mon against every type, it's that it inverts a decent amount of matchups, which gives it an uncompetitive vibe. And yeah shit like koko, gren, and mew are also probably fucked. In comparison to oras I don't think it's as balanced. Granite, we did fuck up with hoopa and medicham in oras and even STAG as well, but I think having to deal with shit like koko, gren, mew, STAG, and these new drops is really just making SM a massive shitfest rn. It was safer by the end of ORAS to allow public suspects even though we still fucked up, but there's honestly just too much shit to go through public suspects. There can be a mix of both, but certain things just need to be quickbanned at this point.​

Do you have any advice for people new to Monotype or people who are trying to improve?
- Obviously use as many resources as you can on here. Some of them are still developing, but there are a lot of good things to click in the monotype room intro to help guide newer players into the community. Just don't be a shithead either. It really pains me to see players get off on the wrong foot with staff and the community when I know they are actually decent battlers. Badmouthing the staff and council honestly just gets you nowhere. At the end of the day, these people have lives and nobody wants to put up with an edgy 14 year old who is fucking furious that their main type will suck if something get's banned. And given the size of the community now and the amount of people that bitch, we get a miniscule amount of the community to actually vote in suspect test so contrary to popular belief, it's actually not eien's fault.​

What are your thoughts on Monotype OMs? Do you think they deserve a presence in competitive monotype or do they simply belong in occasional room tours?
-I honestly blow at almost every OM except monothreat so Idrk. Some of them were fun to watch in MPL II, but they end up being even more centralized than monotype already is so I don't think they belong in something like MPL. The tours in the subforum dedicated to certain om's are fine though, they attract a decent audience.​

Are there any players that have impressed you or that you think will be able to make a mark in the community?
- I think the community is pretty set in stone right now, but I think there are a good amount of players on other servers who can compete, but don't show their faces a lot or just have a "fuck the main community mindset" pounded into their heads for no reason at all. More and more players have been joining the competitive monotype tours though compared to ORAS so I've actually been really pleased with that.

What are your overall thoughts on the past season of MPL? How does it compare to the previous?
- Of course for me this past mpl was awesome because my team won. (s/o honch's) I also really enjoyed it because we had players like Pearl and soulgazer who I learned a lot from as well. Our team was also really selfless and everyone was pitching in, which made winning even more enjoyable because everyone felt involved. The tour itself had some controversy but so did MPL II so I wasn't too worried about it.​

With MLT returning for it’s 3rd rendition, what do you think of this kind of tour? Do you think it’s a good indication of skill or does the qualifying method ruin that? Are you looking forward to participating in it?
- I think MLT is fantastic. Like I said, the community has been pretty stale lately so hopefully something like this will get some new faces out there and into the tour scene. I think laddering shows a level of competence to an extent so no I don't mind the qualifying method. I don't think I'm going to participate in it given that I'm still getting used to school and such so I don't have time to bang out games, but it should be fun to watch.​

Who do you think are the top 5 SM monotype players right now?
- I'll just throw some names out in no particular order, Paleo,Eien,Leru,Lycan,Sabella,Thethorn,(when he cares enough to play mono) Clearly,(when not dead) and Zukushiku (when not dead).​

You are known for delivering when it comes to tournaments, can you walk us through how you prepare for each match?
- Knowing your opponent is underrated. You can tell if someone doesn't care enough to scout and keeps bringing the same shit over and over so easily. I was able to keep using poison a lot in my recent seasonal run because a lot of my opponents didn't take the time to prepare so I knew i could get a lot of neutral matchups and let my high level of play carry me. If I'm playing the aforementioned people above, I'm going to go out of my comfort zone and do my best to get an unexpected edge. Pro tip for newer players in the tour scene: understand that the most successful tour players are going to scout you and prepare for the steel and ground team they've seen 8 times in your last 10 replays so use that to your advantage.​

Similar to the previous question, any advice on team building?
- Fail, Fail, and keep failing. I get frustrated sometimes when I see people ask around for move specific suggestions and tiny things like that. The resources mono has to offer will give you a general idea on how to teambuild and which mons to use etc etc. Anybody can figure that out. But when you get your general team composition down and u can't figure out whether or not to run ice beam or fire blast on your slowbro, just play when you get 6-0'd by a ferrotran core then you can act accordingly. It's a lot better to take that approach then just constantly leeching. It's fine to use resources, but the experience you gain from self teaching goes a long way.​

Who are some of your favorite people that you met on Pokemon Showdown?
- s/o woa and IW​

Finally, can you showcase a team that you think represents your style as a player and provide an explanation on how to use it?
Krookodile @ Focus Sash
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Earthquake
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock

Greninja @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Protean
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Hydro Pump
- Ice Beam
- U-turn
- Gunk Shot

Bisharp @ Focus Sash
Ability: Defiant
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Knock Off
- Iron Head
- Sucker Punch
- Swords Dance

Hydreigon @ Expert Belt
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Dark Pulse
- Fire Blast
- Superpower
- Taunt

Sharpedo @ Sharpedonite
Ability: Speed Boost
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Protect
- Crunch
- Ice Fang
- Psychic Fangs

Tyranitar @ Rockium Z
Ability: Sand Stream
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Stone Edge
- Fire Punch
- Earthquake


- Between magearna and recent drop consisting of gallade, gardevoir, and altaria, dark has been taking some hits. However, instead of trying to use balance dark variants, I wanted to try and use an offense build so I can try and kill the shit i lose to before it sweeps me. I think I did a pretty good job at making something that can accomplish that and so far this has been my favorite team to ladder with in SM. I think it's like 2-0 in tours, but it can be risky to use in the tour scene as there are some matchups that are simply unwinnable due to the nature of such a balls to the walls offense team like this. But yeah it has lots of elements offense needs like revenge killers, breaking power, and taunt. There are things you can mess around with because at the end of the day, it's offense, but this has been the most successful version for me so far.​


Any last words you want to leave us with?
- FUCK EIEN BAN MAGEARNA

This concludes my interview with Wanka. A huge thanks to him for taking time out of his day and replying all my questions with such detailed answers! Feel free to now ask your own questions to our Player of the Week.

Also, sorry to everyone about this project being dead for a while. Been busy with back to College and all, but PotW should be back to usual!​
 
Last edited:

Wanka

is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
UUPL Champion
Do you think offensive or defensive Mega Scizor is more prevalent in the current metagame?
Defensive for sure. Balance is the go to archetype for steel atm so you tend to see more bulky roost mega sciz variants as it can be a useful pivot for those types of builds to gain momentum.

thoughts on defog latios in black and white monotype?
poop. trick or 3 attacks roost
 

Wanka

is a Community Leader Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
UUPL Champion
Is there any underrated Bug mon you've used in a team and you've been successful with?
I wouldn't say any underrated mons but an underrated set i used during the initial stages of sm was rest talk araquanid with scald and toxic. It acted as a nice sponge and actually let bug explore the balance archetype a bit which was kinda cool. Most people have strayed away from that tho so I'm not sure how it would do in the current meta.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top